In addition to financial questions, the Special Review Team sent to the Fairfield County School District in October also examined allegations of Board behavior that appear contrary to a successful learning environment.

In the case of the first standard, Vision and Purpose, the allegation was “Ongoing implementation of the Board-approved District Strategic Plan for Accelerating Student Learning during 2007-2012 is being undermined by actions of Board members.”

Evidence supporting this allegation included minutes from a Feb. 5, 2008 board meeting, which document the board’s unanimous vote to approve a district strategic plan to accelerate learning.

This plan included the implementation of the CRT (Criterion Reference Tests) as one of its means to measure academic improvement.

“The CRT was basically a nine-weeks test,” said former board member Bob Drake, who served as Board Secretary at the time of the plan’s approval. “Our policy said we should be testing, but we weren’t testing.”

The CRT, Drake said, was to account for 20 percent of a student’s final grade.

However, the team also uncovered a sworn affidavit, signed by board member Annie McDaniel and dated May 27, 2008, which stated “. . . the Board has never voted to give the superintendent the authority to replace the 20% Comprehensive post as required by Code Policy IKE-R with the CRT.”

The affidavit was submitted to the Court of Common Pleas, 6th Judicial District, in a case brought against the school district by Chante Jackson (case # 2008-CP-20-167).

A review of both the Strategic Plan and Board policy has shed little light on the matter.

The Strategic Plan consists of little more than a two-page chart of goals, with no discernable plan on how these goals were to be achieved. Nowhere does the Plan clearly express the weight the CRT was to have in a student’s final grade.

The only mention of the CRT in the Plan states “100% of schools with seamless curriculum in all areas by 2012 SY [school year] with 70% of the students at mastery on Criterion Reference Tests.”

Under section IKE-R of the Board’s policy, no mention whatsoever was found of a “20% Comprehensive post.”

What is clear, from reviewing the minutes of the Feb. 5, 2008 board meeting, is that the board voted unanimously to give the superintendent the authority to implement the Strategic Plan, and that McDaniel was present at the meeting and voted on the measure.

Why she would sign an affidavit to the contrary less than four months later remains unclear.

Phone calls to Ms. McDaniel regarding the matter were not returned.

The Special Review Team, which had been denied interview access by the district during their investigation, had to rely solely on documentary evidence to reach the following conclusion:

“By taking this step independent of the Board, it was alleged that Ms. McDaniel’s action, in effect, served to undermine the district’s approved improvement efforts,” the report states.

Referencing the same incident, the report states that McDaniel’s action also violated official board policy.

The team concluded that “Board actions appear to have severely hindered the ability of the schools in the district to ‘establish and communicate a shared purpose and direction for improving the performance of students and the effectiveness of the school.’ Moreover, their actions have created confusion, misunderstanding, and a lack of support for the strategic planning process . . .”

*Friday: Micromanagement and superintendent turnover.